Digital Forensics Dispatch

Google Announces New Privacy Tools

October 10, 2019

Google published a blog post last week detailing the new features the company is implementing to allow users more control over their data. The new features will impact their most-used applications including Google Maps, YouTube, and Google Assistant.

First, Google Maps has received an incognito mode feature. When using Google Maps in incognito mode, any location activity on the device won’t be saved to your Google account. This includes directions and places that are searched for. It is important to note that searching while in incognito mode will not update user personalization features and recommendations. Google implemented the incognito mode feature to YouTube earlier this year.

Included in a previous update, Google released a feature allowing users to automatically delete their web browser history and location activity. Now, Google has expanded the feature to include YouTube history. A user will have the ability to set a time period that the user would like their YouTube history available, such as three months. The rest of the history will be deleted automatically.

Google has also addressed privacy issues with Google Assistant. A user is now able to tell Google Assistant to delete recent voice commands. This can be accomplished by saying “Hey Google, delete everything I’ve said to you in the last week.” Additional features to manage user device privacy can be managed inside the Google Assistant application.

Finally, Google is implanting a password protection tool into its Password Manager. The password checkup feature will monitor your password activity and alert you if your passwords aren’t strong enough, if you’ve reused them, or if Google discovers that they have been compromised.

Google mentioned in the post “As technology evolves, so do people’s expectations for security and privacy. We look forward to building protections that aim to exceed those expectations.”

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